Matt and I Debate and No One Cares

The
story of my would-be girlfriend and I cools off for a couple of
weeks, so to fill the time while we wait for more news on that front
I will tell you about some other stuff that happened. When I went
back to school after having been banned from everything I was still
in the debate class I just couldn't participate in extracurricular
activities. One day the debate coach from a neighboring school
dropped in to see how we were doing things, as he wanted to learn how
to win debate competitions like our coach had done. My coach offered
to send me and my little brother over to his class at a high school
in a town a few miles away to have a live Lincoln Douglas debate and
to illustrate for the children what one might see in the heat of fake
word fighting so they would not be scared. It was exciting because I
had in my mind the idea that somebody actually cared about Lincoln
Douglas debate. Here's a spoiler: high school children as a rule do
not care that much about formal debate - except for dorks, geeks, and
nerds, and who cares what those guys like, right? My coach told him
that I had won lots of tournaments but that my style was a bit
convoluted and esoteric. I was not really sure what esoteric meant
but it sounded like a compliment to my not insubstantial powers of
smart-being. My brother and I drove over to the neighboring high
school and we set up a 35 min. or so debate. I cannot over emphasize
how blindingly boring debate is anyone who is not a debater. A speech
class usually has mostly people who are not that interested the class
per se, they just heard it was an easy 'A' if you liked to
talk. This class was no exception. There were about 40 kids who were
there to listen to my brother and I debate the resolution that
individual liberty was more important than societal good. Oh, now
that's a juicy one. As I relate this story of how badly we bombed
this gig I got a little debate twinge and wanted to start writing a
quick couple of notes on the resolution, it is like nerd alcoholism
you are never cured just in remission. By the end of my first speech,
which was 7 min. long, we had lost the room. The teacher kept asking
people to quiet down and quit talking but that wasn't doing too much
to maintain order. My brother got up for cross-examination and
people were openly talking to each other, then he gave his speech and
I cross-examined him. I had to get up and give another speech and at
this point anyone who's ever lost a room in any sort of public
performance knows the agony of pressing through and finishing when
you are being actively ignored. We did push on through and then the
class was supposed to ask us questions, no one did. One girl said she
didn't know why we were there. You and I both sister, you and I both.
They voted on the winner and most likely because I had spoken last
they said I won. This was not the most horrible thing that ever
happened to me in my life but I had somehow gotten into some
inexplicable macho posturing about being a good debater and this did
put in perspective how exactly bad-A I was for being a debate super
Amadeus. Not bad-A at all that's about how bad-A I was.